Qais Ghanem

Biography

Retired neurologist, author, poet, columnist for several international papers.
Promotes peace, dialogue with diversity and gender equality.
Previous books:
Final Flight from Sanaa - novel, also translated to Arabic
Two Boys from Aden College - novel - also Arabic version
My Arab Spring My Canada - co-authored non-fiction
From Left to Right - Arabic and English verse
Forbidden Love in the Land of Sheba

Where to buy in print

Videos

Readings from FINAL FLIGHT FROM SANAA

The author was invited by the British Yemeni Society, London, England, to read from, and to discuss his novel, one of the first ever to be written about the people and culture of Yemen by an author of Yemeni origin, in English.
This 15 min video summarizes Yemeni customs and culture, especially when it comes to the position of women in that society.

Books

Dr Ahmad, a trained forensic physician finds himself in danger because he proves that an important sheikh who killed a black burglar, was in no danger at the time. The police harass him to falsify his evidence as does Hasan, his own brother in law, and minister of justice in Sanaa. The burglar's daughter, a teenage prostitute, in gratitude to Dr Ahmad, plans her revenge against her client Hasan.

Yemeni-Canadian Dr inspects Polish x-ray equipment in Yemen. En route he has a one night affair with Danish Gita in Warsaw. Before leaving Sanaa, an old classmate asks him to treat his daughter's seizures. He diagnoses hysterical seizures after rape by an army officer. Security find out. He is tortured by a former medical student. Gita, who works for Amnesty International, flies to Yemen urgently.

A hot but polite discussion (in Arabic) about middle eastern politics and Islam, among four Arabs: a Yemeni steeped in Islamic-Arab tradition; a modern Christian Lebanese; a divorced Egyptian atheist female bank manager and her uncle Saleh, a modern Muslim with a Ph.D. in science.

Fifteen-year-old Hana has a crush on twenty-year-old cousin, Farook. But he leaves Yemen to study medicine in Scotland. Her parents force her to marry another cousin, twice her age, a selfish, abusive criminal involved in arms’ sales and gang rapes. Ten years later, Hana’s life changes dramatically when Farook opens a clinic next door.

When Dr. Tariq Hakim introduced himself to lawyer Colin Lawler at the Royal Crown in Ottawa, he never imagined that he would end up traveling back to his country of birth, Yemen, where he would land in a dirty dark dungeon being tortured by a former medical student. All he had done was reluctantly examine the newly married daughter of a school mate of his, because of her intractable seizures.